SOS – Save our Serendipity! Part I
Dr. Miriam Meckel
Co-founder, Executive Chairwoman @ ada | Professor @ University of St. Gallen | AI, Communication
(Klicken Sie hier, um zur deutschen Version zu gelangen.)
Serendipity is our soul. Serendipity sustains us, it occasionally gives our lives directions neither planned nor anticipated, and serendipity opens up different avenues of looking at this world. As I will argue, without serendipity, life would not just be predictable, it would be excruciatingly boring.
Part 1: Serendipity –
the fine distinction between man and machine
We, the creators of the Internet, have all but banished serendipity from our lives. How high is the price we are paying? Are we exchanging a challenging but exciting life for a predictable but dull one? Our revolution against serendipity is a silent one, as it is our frequent usage of the Internet that gives the algorithms of Google, Facebook & Co. the opportunity to calculate our preferences, interests, desires and our next steps, thereby gradually eliminating everything unexpected from our digital lifestyle.
Consider the books Amazon recommends we read – they are surprisingly close to our taste. Likewise, Genius offers music that matches our preferences quite well. Foursquare suggests bars where we can meet our friends, NewsMe proposes news stories that we should read or watch, and Parship recommends people that we could fall in love with. This is all very convenient and it sure makes life easier. But it is a different life than the one we knew until now. It’s a life in the rear view mirror.
The algorithms that compute all these recommendations and suggestions for us are forever stuck in the past, as they base their calculations on our actions in times foregone. Through the analysis and evaluation of this data, the algorithm creates a more or less linear projection into the future of all we ever did, desired and loved. This projection may be quite accurate, since man is a creature of habit. What we once took a liking to, we will probably like all our lives. Without serendipity’s intervention, the algorithms we created may force us into a never-ending time-warp, dwelling forever in the status quo of our own preferences and desires.
And this ?future“ is beginning right now. By the end of 2009, Google had its search algorithm changed from general to personalized. So, whoever enters a search term today, receives highly individualized results. Thereby, Google analyzes, weighs and applies not only previous decisions and search terms but also consults other personal data that may be retrieved from the Internet. My personal Google hits will thus be the ones that most likely match my recent preferences. Social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter used to show the user’s content chronologically – not anymore. They recently changed it to show posts in order of ?relevance”. This is nothing but a personal pre-selection as the content is chosen by decisions that users made in the past.
There is a beautiful term in the English language for all that is lost in this custom-tailored world: ?serendipity”. It describes an unexpected discovery that is brought to light by sheer coincidence or by a chance encounter. Serendipity is involved when we enter a book store and stumble upon a random book that we would have never read, had it not been in the right place at the perfect time. It is serendipity when we browse through a newspaper report and suddenly find ourselves riveted by its content even though we were neither interested nor familiar with its topic only minutes ago.
Serendipity is at play when we meet a person who we fall in love with, even though he or she may not meet our ideal conception. And finally, serendipity may lie in the chance encounter with a new topic that seems important and hence sparks a heartfelt wish to become (politically) active.
At first sight, the loss of serendipity seems to be a mere technical issue, a peculiarity tied to software-dependent environments only. But with time, our loss may lead to wider ranging consequences, which we should at least understand, if not counteract. An overly personalized internet has the potential to change our world views and – as a last consequence – ourselves.
In Part 2 you will learn why a life without serendipity would be dangerous.
Activating Sustainable Procurement for Risk Management, Compliance, Resilience and Value
7 年Indeed, this trend toward increasing personalization seems an inevitable tendency of the digital world. I find some irony thinking back to the evolution of the internet. Remember when Yahoo! was king. That was the 'old school', so-called structured approach, and yet this interface let you truly "browse" the web, looking through a well-curated index (a lot like a library) and stumble on some great finds. This has been "surpassed" by the infinitely simplified and supposedly "unstructured" google, with a single dialog box. But therein lies the loss of serendipity. There is no more 'browsing'. Nothing happens unless YOU come up with what you want to look for. Much less frequently now will your neighborhood bookseller, or a friend or relative suggest a book to read - Amazon's robot does it instead. The human element completely removed. But don't despair, you can create your own serendipity. Subscribe to good newsletters like Brainpickings, or listen to NPR, and correspond by mail (or at least email) instead of social media, and visit your bookstore once a month!
Freelance Creative Director for the sports & entertainment industry
8 年There's an interesting thought. Thank you for the read.
Telecommunications Professional (MSc)
8 年I enjoyed the reading, however I do not really accept that, because when you are, for example, in the process of choosing a book, you go to a bookstore having the style of books you like, and these books have already been chosen by the bookstore owner you like and trust and you believe that there, you will find a book to read. You also sometimes want some help from someone else to suggest some books for you. So either way, ie through a real bookstore or a SW application, there is always enough place for serendipity. In fact through the application you might even have more options. In my opinion it mostly depends on the way we put our query either to a person or to a system.
Presentation, Sound and Art
8 年Appreciate the basic approach of this essay esp. the insight into the back-looking character of actual algorithms. But I ask myself: Can we expect serendipity from internet and social media algorithms which are driven by business requirements? Or isn't the ability to perceive serendipity an individual gift, which we may have preserved at least from our childhood.
Helping brands communicate across cultural and linguistic borders. Go create. We'll find a way to make it work worldwide.
8 年Great insight, beautifully put, Miriam! For a child, serendipity is the everyday happenstance encounters that combine to form his or her view of the world. Over time, many of us lose this ability to “serendipitate” to some degree. This may be the result of a more “focused” lifestyle (think specialization and excessive emphasis on efficiency). There may even be some neuropsychological reasons. Or just complacency. But we can always decide to open ourselves to new experiences, explore the world with a curious mind once again. It’s a shame that the very medium that has unlocked new and unknown worlds for many of us is about to sacrifice random openness for short-term profit.